Head knowledge ≠ Relationship.
A realization i came to recently. Seems pretty obvious right?
Mmm, not for good church kids who knew all the answers. That was me. I smile as i think about it. i won a beanie baby for bringing the most offering, or something like that (it probably totaled not more than a dollar). I won a trip to see the Prince of Egypt for reading Exodus 1-15. Im laughing out loud now.
Whats not as funny, is that then and throughout most of my life my relationship (or lack thereof) with Christ has been largely based on what i knew. How much i knew about predestination vs free will, what i thought about women in ministry and the like. Not that those things arent important, but that those things are less important than many 'good christians' like me realize.
A study in Psalms is what brought about this realization. Im really enjoying it. I always read psalms when i dont know what else to read, or when im too lazy to read anything meaty. They're easy reading and just nice happy short chapters. You know, the kind that you dont really have to invest in. I think what this study has brought to light, is the fact that the psalms arent what i thought they were.
The psalms are an outpouring of emotion, simply put. I think that the psalms were, when written, emotional vomit on the paper. How incredible! What i love, is that the writer doesnt hold anything back, using phrases like "Woe is me!" and then one psalm later singing praises to the Glory of God and thanking him. This most definitely makes James 3:10 hit home. So how come these seemingly conflicting things ended up in the pages of scripture? Shoot, i dunno.
Maybe God values relationship, and maybe just like in earthly relationships a relationship with Christ is built upon honesty and communication. Maybe honesty and communication include telling God straight up when you're mad at him. Telling God straight up that you dont think he's doing the right thing. Being brutally honest, ive told God before that if He really knew what i was going through, it wouldnt have been that way. Ive questioned just about every attribute of God that i know to be true when im at my darkest. Wrong of me? Maybe, but he knew my thoughts even if i didnt verbalize them to him. I might as well verbalize what he already knows, even if its just for my own sake. Sometime hearing myself say things is cathartic, just like talking to your best friend about your problems makes you feel better, or even telling someone how they hurt you opens the door for healing.
I guess the moral of the story is that when im at my darkest, my head knowledge - the stuff i 'know' about God - does nothing to help me. In fact, i question what i know to be true at those times. what helps me at my darkest, is a relationship with my creator. Can one even fathom how crazy that is? a relationship with our creator and not one where he just puts up with us, one where he cares about us and our little feelings... wow.
I've started writing psalms. I never thought i was any good at writing poetry or songs, but for some reason, psalm writing comes easy to me, and i think its because its an upwelling of raw emotion. Raw emotion doesnt need to rhyme, it doesnt even really need to make sense to anyone but me and God. And so i build a better relationship with God one psalm at at time. I tell him what im feeling even when i think i shouldnt be feeling that way. I've also stopped reading inspirational Christian books and thinking about theological matters for the time being. Theology is nothing in comparison to relationship. where theology keeps me on the straight and narrow, relationship carries me. I need to spend significantly more of my time building my relationship with Christ.
Archive for 2010
No one every says what they really think.
Its a relentless dance around people’s feelings and social expectations.
Maybe thats what J.D. Salinger got right when he wrote catcher in the Rye. Maybe what we all relate to in that book is the fact that we all sense the”phony-ness” of everyone around us, and even more discustingly the phony-ness in ourselves.
Maybe thats what Sylvia Plath got right in The Bell Jar. She sensed it too. No amount of glam fills the emptyness. No amount of dresses and sex will ever make it go away.
Even Solomon, before society as we know it even existed, when he wrote Ecclesiastes, knew this:
Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher,
vanity of vanities! all is vanity
what does man gain by all the toil
at which he toils under the sun?
A generation goes, a generation comes,
but the earth remains forever.
The sun rises, and the sun goes down
and hastens to the place where it rises.
The wind blows to the south
and goes around to the north
around and around goes the wind
and on its circuits the wind returns
All streams run to the sea,
but the sea is not full;
to the place where streams flow
there they will flow again
All things are full of wearyness
a man cannot utter it;
the eye is not satisfied with seeing
nor the ear filled with hearing
what has will be,
and what has been done is what will be done
and there is nothing new under the sun
Is there a thing of which it is said
“see, this is new!”?
It has been already
in ages before us
There is no remembrance of former things
nor will there be any remembrance
of later things yet to be
among those who come after.
Nothing seems real. Its all fake, is all a web of ulterior motives and unspoken thoughts and feelings.
Lord, save us from ourselves and our vanity.
Only out of true depravity comes true faith
binoculars
Sometimes i think people live life as if they were looking through a pair of binoculars.
It seems to me, that through the eyes of our own consciousness (our own minds ideas, upbringing, emotional state etc…) everything is magnified. We look through our lenses and see life and the world as something much bigger than it probably should be, especially if the particular thing has to do with ourselves.
Sometimes, when i dont expect it, the binoculars get pulled away from my eyes. The world is so much bigger than i think it is. There are other people around me looking at the same situation with a completely different thought process and most definitely a different solution or outcome. Sometimes it still amazes me that other people think differently than i do, not because i think they’re wrong or that they should think like me, but because i cant fathom any other way of thinking, because again, i live my life through the lenses of my own consciousness.
And so does everyone else.
And they’re all looking at the world through their own pair of binoculars.
rather abstract, i apologize.
This is a post i stole from Amber's blog. Someone anonymously posted it on her page.
Anonymous asked: sometimes i'm so tired. sometimes i feel like no one gets it, y'know? sometimes i just want to fall asleep forever and not wake up and just melt into my own little world, and i'd wake up by the ocean. the sky, it would be a light gray, and it would rain sometimes, but the sun would be slightly visible behind the clouds. i don't really like sunshine. it bores me after a while. no one would be there, just me, and my pony would come up out of the dunes and i'd ride him forever. we would be able to ride right across the water, just like that. and there'd be sharks, too, but they wouldn't hurt us. no one would hurt us. hurt would be nonexistent, and perfection would exist. because perfection, otherwise, doesn't exist. earth doesn't keep perfection. it's impossible. like walking on water, and falling in love, and understanding what my dog means when he stares at me and wags his tail. i wish i knew what he was saying. i like animals more than i like people. isn't that strange? everything i wish i was, will never happen. whenever i create people in my head, they're tall and they're excellent runners, and they play beautiful music and create lovely things that i wish i could. but i'm just a kid. i'm sorry i left you to read all this, but i didn't know who else to leave it too. and you're an artist, amber. when i die, i want an artist to have my things, because i feel like they'd be able to figure out what i was thinking better than anyone else. because truthfully? i'm a wannabe artist, right inside my head. i don't have the stuff to do it, but i like to pretend. isn't that what we all do, every day? pretend? on a side note, you don't necessarily have to post this on your tumbler. i'm so sorry i bored you with all of this. if you don't want to, you don't have to even acknowledge that i wrote this. please, have a lovely day, amber.
Im thankful for hope. For a faith that makes every moment worth it.